“I am the light of the world. He that followeth me, walketh not in darkness” (Jn.VIII, 12)

Since faith is one, it must be professed in all its purity and integrity". Pope Francis/Pope Benedict

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Thursday, 1 August 2013

Pope Francis: Ricca, and the Gay Lobby

Sandro Magister, the journalist who broke the Ricca scandal has some salient reflections on the Pope's impromtu press conference on board the Alitalia flight from Rio to Rome. Significantly, Magister underscores that there is documentation at the Nuciature in Montevideo, and that these documents were suppressed by a person or person - presently - unknown in the Vatican.

Another set of answers concerned the “gay bobbies” at the Vatican and the case of Monsignor Battista Ricca, appointed by the pope prelate of the IOR before his scandalous past came to light.No prejudice against homosexuals, but the lobbies no, they're not okay. This is the gist of what Francis said to the journalists.

In general, about the gays and the lobbies pope expressed himself as follows:"So much is written about the gay lobby. So far I have not found anyone at the Vatican who has written 'gay' on his identity card. A distinction must be made between being gay, having this tendency, and being in a lobby. The lobbies, all lobbies, are not good. If a person is gay and is seeking the Lord with good will, who am I to judge him? The catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that gay persons must not be discriminated against, but must be welcomed. The problem is not having this tendency, the problem is being in a lobby, and this applies here just as it does to business lobbies, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies.”While on the specific case of Ricca he said:"In the case of monsignor Ricca I have done what canon law says to do: an initial investigation. There has been found nothing of that of which he has been accused. We have not found anything. Many times in the Church the sins of youth are sought out and then publicized. We are not talking about offenses, about crimes, like the abuse of minors which is a completely different thing, but about sins. But if a layperson or a priest or a sister has committed a sin and has converted and confessed, the Lord forgives, he forgets. And we do not have the right not to forget, because otherwise we risk that the Lord may not forget our sins. So many times I think of Saint Peter who committed the gravest sin, he denied Christ. And yet they made him pope. But I repeat, about Monsignor Ricca we have not found anything.”Francis did not add anything else. He did not say that the facts alleged against Monsignor Ricca are false. He simply said that about these facts “nothing has been found” in the documentation submitted to him at the Vatican.But since - as the pope now well knows - everything about these events is found in the documentation of the pontifical nunciature in Montevideo and at the time the documentation was sent to Rome as well, the deduction is obvious: at the Vatican a lobby worked to cover the tracks.The pope also did not confirm his trust in Monsignor Ricca and declare the matter closed. Anything but. The “sins of youth” can be forgiven, he said. But only to those who sincerely confess and repent of them, as did Saint Peter. Not to those who have done and are doing all they can to conceal them, disguise them, get rid of them, with the help of a powerful lobby that is still not admitting defeat. One of those lobbies, the adjective does not matter, which Pope Francis has once again said he wants to uproot from the Vatican curia.